Now there’s a pill for every ill
Home remedies were the order of the day during the columnist’s growing up years in Scotland.
I WAS in my local pharmacy the other day when it occurred to me that there must be a product available for just about every ache, pain an d n iggle that man could possibly experien ce – real an d imagin ary. There must also be people out there buyin g all this stufffor it to be on the shelves in the first place. Have we all gon e completely soft?
When I was a youn g girl, there wasn ’t even a tin y fraction ofall this stuffaroun d. Ifan yon e ever got sick or had an acciden t of some sort, the go-to cure was a cup oftea.
“You have an upset stomach?’ a con cern ed relative might say. “Here, get this cup oftea in side you an d you’re guaran teed to feel better.”
“A sore throat?” an other might say. “What you n eed is a cup of tea.”
“You’re sufferin g from a broken heart?” yet an other might exclaim. “You’ll feel better after a n ice cup oftea.”
I swear, someon e’s wife somewhere must have put the kettle on immediately after her husban d had suffered a heart attack.
“I’ve called the ambulan ce, dear,” she might have said. “It will be here in a couple ofmin utes, which mean s you’ve got time for a cup oftea before it arrives.”
The poor man probably mumbled somethin g breathlessly in respon se.
“What’s that?” she asked. “You can ’t breathe? Don ’t worry, you’ll feel better after the tea.”
I’ve n oticed in man y movies that people are usually offered water when they’re n ot feelin g well. That’s because most movies I watch are made in the US, an d the people over there don ’t drin k as much tea as the people in Scotlan d did when I was a child.